Bimbo
Women who have died: Bimbo Onanuga
Bimbo Onanuga, died in March 2010, while attending the Rotunda hospital. Ms Onanuga, who lived in Finglas in Dublin, was attending the Rotunda Maternity hospital when she died in March 2010, having suffered massive internal bleeding.
Her uterus had ruptured, and an inquest heard that her baby had delivered through the rupture into the abdominal cavity. The inquest heard that a postmortem found that the site of the rupture had been weakened by scarring caused by an earlier abortion.
Dr Sam Coulter-Smith, Master of the Rotunda, told the inquest that it was “probably reasonably safe to assume” that the scarring had been caused during a previous abortion, when Ms Onanuga's womb had been perforated, and that this predisposed her to rupture.He also said that it was an "unrecognised perforation" and that the Rotunda had no information that any complication had occurred during the abortion.
The Life Institute said that the case showed that abortion clinics posed a real and substantial risk to women's lives, and that abortionists were all too often "substandard practitioners who caused physical harm to women and did not even bother to report it".
"Clearly, the Rotunda were made aware of the earlier abortion, but not of the complication - the perforation to the womb - which caused the scarring. The question is: did Ms Onanuga even know about the injury caused to her by the abortionist? Is this yet another case of abortion malpractice where women die?" they said in a statement.
Coroner Dr Brian Farrell found that a principal risk factor in the death of Ms Bimbo Onanuga was a pre-existing scar caused by an earlier abortion, along with the use of misoprostol, which had caused the uterus to contract. A pro-life spokesperson offering his sympathies to Ms Onanuga's family, said that the media would be doing a “huge disservice to women if they ignored the central fact in the case - that scarring from an earlier abortion had led to this women's tragic death."
"Women need to be informed about the reality of abortionists - who have repeatedly shown that they care for neither mother nor baby," he said. "Bimbo Onanuga has lost her life: will we now see some honest reporting, and some answers from the clinic who caused her death, or will this tragedy be covered up to protect the abortion industry?" he asked.
Last year, Irish abortion referral agents were caught on tape advising women not to tell their doctors about previous abortion(s) - a practise that Obstetricians said put women's lives in danger.
Links
- Link to article in the Irish Times
- Link to the article on RTE
- Inquest told of emergency Caesarean carried out on Nigerian-born woman - Irish Times
- Link to the article in the Independent